


Close my eyelids, hide my eyes

by evo101



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 22:55:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17651393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evo101/pseuds/evo101
Summary: Pre-Iron Man, so set around 2007.When Pepper gets a call in the middle of the night to pick up a drunken and bruised Tony Stark, what will she make of it?Basically, angsty, emotional fluff for pepperony lovers





	Close my eyelids, hide my eyes

**Author's Note:**

> So I wanted to write something that was Pepper/Tony specific, cos I feel like there's a lack of fics nowadays based just on them. And I love these characters soooo much and they deserve every ounce of happiness they can get. LITERALLY AS I WAS WRITING THIS ROBERT DOWNEY JR JUST POSTED THE ENDGAME CLIP!!!!!!!!!! OMG- MY BABIES!!!  
> Anyway, hope you enjoy some pre-pepperony goodness

Pepper had just changed into her favourite pyjamas when she got the call. Frustrated and angry at her boss, she re-dressed, tied her hair back and grabbed her car keys. There was no point in disturbing Happy at this hour. Anytime past 1am, Pepper found inappropriate to request the chauffeurs help, especially in these particular circumstances.

Tony had mentioned something about meeting Rhodey at a club in town, she had just brushed it off, hoping that he wouldn’t cause too much of a scene in the evening. Tony’s habits of drinking himself into a deep sleep every night, after bringing home some blonde bimbo and tampering with his robots, were not disappearing anytime soon. She had hoped her boss would have realised his utter immature stupidity by now; apparently not.

She switched on the car engine and began making her way to ‘The Lighthouse’, where she was told a drunken, bashed up billionaire would be waiting for her. There weren’t many cars on the road, it almost seemed alien compared to the usual unbearable traffic of LA streets, but it was nearly half two in the morning. She parked on the curb side, a couple meters along from the club entrance. She grabbed her blackberry and made her way towards the two security guards ahead.

“I’m here for Mr. Stark”

The two men glanced at each other before one of them nodded and walked inside. Pepper took this as a cue to follow and made her way inside.

She squinted her eyes, which were struggling to work properly in the flickering strobe lights. She followed the guard straight through the crowd of dancers, past the bar and into a small backroom. Her boss was slumped over a table, his eyes closed and a bag of ice against his left cheek.

“Pep!” Tony half shouted as he opened his eyes at the familiar, enticing sound of heels.

“Mr. Stark” she replied, dreading the next forty five minutes of her life.

“You ‘ave to get me outta ‘ere” he slurred, making a move to stand. “Rhodey left me, said I was irrespo-, irresponsi-”

“Irresponsible” she supplied, moving forward just in time to hold up his body.

“ ‘Ats the one”

“I need you to stand up and help me out here, ok?” she whispered, not wanting to cause an even bigger scene. She was used to the tabloid crap by now, but she still tried to avoid any opportunities the paparazzi could take advantage of.

“Peppp” Tony whined. “Wanna go home”

“That’s where I’m taking you now, so you gotta walk back to the car with me, alright?”

“Yuhuh” he mumbled, as he began to take steps towards the door.

They made it outside eventually, after numerous moans from Tony – all of which she just assumed were due to his drunken state. But, under the street light, it was clear that Tony was a little more than ‘bashed up’. He had a puffy purple eye, a cut along his cheekbone and a combination of blood and saliva dribbling down his chin.

“Tony” Pepper whispered.

“I’m fine, nothing a plaster can’t fix” he said, sounding overly chirpy given his current state.

“I’m taking you to the hospital” she replied sternly.

“No, no, no, no, no!” he said hurriedly, shaking his head.

“Tony, you’re bleeding everywhere and you-”

“Please Pep” he whispered, looking at her properly for the first time since she arrived. “I just wanna go home”

Despite her instincts and concern, there was something oddly sober in his voice which made her comply with his wish.

“Ok” she sighed, directing him in the direction of her car.

It took two attempts to get Tony’s lump of a body into the passenger seat without banging his head on the door frame.

Once they were both seated something in Pepper stopped her from driving immediately. Tony seemed to sense her hesitant behaviour, because he placed a hand in her shoulder and tilted his head to the side, mumbling an apology. She knew she should be angry with him, for getting into this sort of state and getting her to collect him from the mayhem, but she had a weakness for those eyes. As much as she tried to ignore them, they would always break down any barrier of anger, it was just one of Tony Stark’s features which wouldn’t leave her alone.

“You need to stop, Tony” she sighed, before turning her key in the engine.

“I can’t” he whispered back, eyes now focused on the blur of the night ahead of him. “I’m sorry. I just can’t”

The drive back was silent. The odd whimper from Tony when they drove over a pothole was the only sound that could be heard.

After twenty minutes, they arrived at the mansion. JARVIS opened the gate for them and activated the lights leading to the garage.  Pepper parked next to his Audi, making sure Tony had enough room to get out without scraping the door along the other car.

“Come on, bed” she ordered, taking a hold of his right arm to guide him out of the vehicle and through the basement.

“You wanna be careful Miss Potts, some people may think that you’re asking me to bed” he smirked.

“Don’t push it Tony” she warned, deciding to take the lift up to the top floor instead of having to battle the stairs.

“Just an observation” he countered, smirk still spread on his face.

They reached the master bedroom faster than she expected. Tony must have realised how tired he was, because he started to slip off his shoes as soon as they passed through the door.

His multiple thousand-pound jacket followed and then his tie and shirt, creating a trail to the bed. Pepper picked each item of clothing up after him, ready to dump it into the laundry basket for the cleaner tomorrow. The sound of her boss finally dropping onto the covers managed to relieve her headache just a little, one step closer to getting her own much-needed sleep. She deposited Tony’s clothes in the basket and made her way over to him.

His hair wasn’t slicked back anymore, some gel still remained, but it had begun to stick out at awkward angles and soften up. As much has she hated having to deal with him in this state, she couldn’t help but love how soft and vulnerable he looked, with heavy eyes and curling hair. He needed a haircut though, the fringe that was no longer pinned back fell over his eyelids and she would soon hear his complaints about it getting in the way. But for now, in this moment, she took time to study Tony’s face. His eye had swollen up over the last half hour, a shade of purple covering the left side of his face. The cut on his cheekbone had stopped bleeding, the dark-red liquid now crusted in a line from his ear to nose, hopefully meaning it won’t stain the sheets.

She hesitated, knowing it was pushing a boundary, before reaching her hand up to brush the hair off his face, running her hands through his curls for a couple of seconds.

“I always knew you had a thing for my hair”

She drew in a harsh breath, shocked at the sudden sound of his voice. Looking down, she could see a tired smile on his lips, not a smug smirk, just a content curve creasing his cheeks.

“You got pretty banged up tonight, I’m just checking you don’t have any lumps on your head” she replied quickly, stilling her hand movements but not removing her fingers out of fear of creating even more tension.

She knew it was a crap excuse, and Tony is all too familiar with her professional front to know that she would never make such an intimate touch with her boss while he was unconscious, even if it was through concern.

“I’ll let you know if I have concussion tomorrow morning” he sighed through a yawn.

“You’ll have a hangover tomorrow anyway” she muttered.

There was a silent pause, where Pepper’s hand was still stuck in place in between his curls and had no idea how to extract them without making the scene anymore awkward than it already was. At least Tony’s eyes were shut, and she thanked God for the lack of eye-contact.

“Can you keep going?” Tony whispered, almost silently as if he was too shy to ask any louder.

Pepper was about to reply with something about her needing to get home to get at least a couple hours sleep, but then Tony shifted his head along the pillow, a little closer to wear she was perching on the side of the bed.

“Mom used to stroke my head”

Tony's voice carried emotion she very rarely heard from him. He had only spoken about his mom twice in her time working for him, but in throw away comments about his house in New York and the piano downstairs. Stane had briefly explained Tony’s mental state in relation to his parents a couple years into the job, after an encounter with a very drunken and emotional boss smashing up a car in his garage, but the rest was just left up to old newspapers and her imagination.

The thought that Tony was letting her see him, properly, without all the money and the stage presence he maintains almost 24/7, awoke something inside of her. This man is her best friend, a person she knows so well it scares her. Her life is planned around planning his life, every hour of every day, every conference call, every charity event. He is one of the most narcissistic, arrogant, ungrateful assholes that she's ever met, while simultaneously one of the most intelligent, skilled and kind-hearted humans that she has known. And she is completely, utterly in love with him.

 


End file.
